1. UNIVERSIDAD JUÁREZ DEL ESTADO DE DURANGO
CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO DE AUTO-APRENDIZAJE DE LENGUAS
Programa de Estudios por Competencias
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUSITION
3rd SEMESTER AUGUST-DECEMBER 2010
(ASSIGNMENT RUBRICS)
Read the following statement:
In language learning, we must practice and practice, again and
again. It’s a matter of repeating things until we learn them.
Just watch a small child learning his mother tongue. He
repeats things over and over again. During the language
learning stage he practices all the time, repeating the same
things over and over again until he gets it right. This is what
we must also do when we learn a foreign language. As
learners, we only have to repeat what the teacher tells us to
repeat. The teacher will provide all the language input we
need to communicate what we want to say.
Do you agree with it?
Write a 300 word essay discussing your opinion on the above statement.
MARA BELEN ANDRADE RAMIREZ
DATE 20/09/10 .
Your discussion
This statement is not completely right for me. I think repeating is very important for second
language acquisition, but is not the only thing that we must to do, repeat and repeat doesn’t mean
that you will be a good learner.
“Just watch a small child learning his mother tongue. He repeats things over and over again “ This
seems to be truth, but we are not analyzing deeply, there are a lot of Theories and hypothesis that
supports the mother tongue acquisition, and repeating, is not the only thing that small children do

2. for learning. Chomsky, for me is the best example that I could give against this statement. I
consider his theories as really good evidence of how L1 and L2 learn the language .Chomsky says
“children do not simply copy the language that they hear around them. They deduce rules from it,
which they can then use to produce sentences that they have never heard before. They do not
learn a repertoire of phrases and sayings, as the behaviorists believe, but a grammar that
generates an infinity of new sentences” I’m absolutely agree, because we have all seen that kind of
children’s new expressions that they create without repeating something.
And when we are learning a foreign language, maybe we are not that confidence, for creating or
experimenting with the language, because of shame, but same as L1 learners, there is another
Chomsky theory that I agree, and that I have experimenting learning French and English, the
Universal Grammar says that language is a innate faculty, so is not the thing of repeating and
repeating ,this innate faculty really make the learning happens, surrounding yourself with native
speakers,listening,and practicing is the good stuff for L2 acquisition.
And teacher is just a Monitor, not the master who provide us like a machine for speak and repeat,
“We born with a brain who creates not only repeats”